


Epidemic

by RecklessDaydreamer



Category: Ghostbusters (2016), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: F/F, Lack of self care, Possession, Serial Killers, Unresolved Romantic Tension, and a really cool gun, blatant plot thievery
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-07
Updated: 2016-09-07
Packaged: 2018-08-13 12:24:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,380
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7976722
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RecklessDaydreamer/pseuds/RecklessDaydreamer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The ghost of a doctor who murdered his patients is haunting New York in the middle of a flu epidemic. At first, the Ghostbusters are confident they’ll catch him, but soon the ghost begins to threaten them and Holtzmann comes down with a mysterious illness.</p>
<p>Plot heavily based on The Adventure of the Dying Detective, one of the original Sherlock Holmes stories. (If you haven’t read it, you’ll still understand this fic.) The "blatant plot thievery" tag is because of that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Epidemic

**Author's Note:**

> Rated T for a little swearing, some blood, and a lot of background murder. (No actual violence depicted, except against ghosts, but a lot is discussed.)

The newspaper hits the door with a soft thump. Erin goes outside to pick it up, sticking a whiteboard marker behind her ear. She groans as she reads the headline. _Doctor Death Still At Large; Investigation Continues Into Second Week._ Below, a column is titled _Ghostbusters Admit Defeat_.

“We did not admit defeat!” she yells across the firehouse.

Abby and Patty look up. “What is it this time?” Abby asks.

Erin throws the newspaper across the room. It lands on the massive map her friends are poring over. “See for yourself.” She knew that press conference was a bad idea.

They’ve been chasing this guy for over a week, and the death toll is still rising. At first, the regular police went out in force. Two days in, they spotted a middle-aged man in scrubs fleeing the scene of another murder and chased him down. The ensuing fight left ten officers wounded and two dead. Eyewitnesses reported a blue-green halo trailing off the suspect as he escaped.

That was when the Ghostbusters got involved.

Since then, their every waking hour has been devoted to tracking down the possessed serial killer the press nicknamed “Doctor Death”. Patty discovered a likely suspect in a set of ancient police records: a Dr. Franklin who’d worked at Bellevue Hospital in the 1850s before being executed for the murders of sixteen patients. When the police discovered that a current surgeon at Bellevue had been calling in sick since the first death, and that every victim so far had been ill, everything clicked into place.

And of course, a flu epidemic has hit New York City at the worst possible time. Most cases aren’t severe, but it’s becoming more and more widespread, which means the ghost could strike anywhere and at any time. Catching him hasn’t been simple. Rowan made himself easy to find, but this ghost is smarter and, far from trying to destroy the world, is sneaking around killing single victims. And while proton blasters work well on ghosts, they tend to destroy anything tangible in the way as well, and nobody wants to actually blow up the possessed surgeon.

Erin drags out a chair and sits down with Abby and Patty. “Do they really think we’re giving up?”

“Things aren’t looking good, Erin,” Abby says.

“And there doesn’t seem to be any historical pattern,” Patty adds. “This Dr. Franklin guy wasn’t choosy. He just… murdered his patients.” She shivers. “God, he’s a creepy dude.”

Erin and Abby nod in silent agreement. “Still,” Erin says, “it’s not like we’re giving up or anything. We just don’t have the knowledge. Or the gear—“

From the second floor, which has been converted into a shared office and lab, Holtzmann yells, “Working on the gear!”

“Okay, sorry. We _will_ have the gear, but we don’t yet.”

“It’s almost done!”

There’s a small explosion upstairs, accompanied by virulent swearing.

Abby sighs. “Whose turn is it?”

“I’ll go.” Erin heaves herself out of her seat and climbs the stairs. Holtz is glaring (from a safe distance, thankfully) at the smoking proton blaster lying on her desk. “Need a hand?”

“No,” Holtz grumbles. “It’ll work.” She approaches the blaster carefully and pokes it with a screwdriver.

Erin peers at the engineer. “When was the last time you slept?”

“Three days ago, maybe?” Holtz says casually, now sorting through a mess of screws and wires.

“You haven’t slept for three days and you’re playing with explosives?!”

“Erin, sweetie, I’m fine. I’ve pulled a few all-weekers in my time.” This last is said with a roguish wink, but it’s the kind of roguish that comes with a side of crazy, fever-bright eyes.

“Oh my god, Holtz,” Erin groans.

“We need to catch this ghost. Don’t worry, I’ll be fine.”

 

The phone rings. Kevin picks up. “Ghostbusters HQ. How can I help you? Well, _that’s_ very hurtful… Okay, okay.” He turns and yells (without covering the mouthpiece), “ABBY! SOMEONE WANTS TO TALK TO YOU!”

Abby leaps up and grabs the phone. “Who is this? Oh. Sorry. That’s our receptionist, he’s—what? Yeah, we’ll be right down.”

She hangs up and says, “Peterson called.”

“The police chief?” Patty asks.

“We have another victim.” There’s a deep weariness in Abby’s eyes.

After telling Kevin to hold down the fort, the Ghostbusters head out. They don’t have sirens or lights, but cars move aside for them anyway. When they pull up in front of the brownstone, it’s obvious that something is wrong. An ambulance and two police cars are already parked bumper to bumper outside the door, and an officer is searching everyone who tries to go in or out.

Holtzmann parks Ecto-1 beside the police cruisers, and the Ghostbusters hurry inside (the officer at the door waves them through with a grim expression). They’re all fully geared up, with proton packs and sidearms at the ready—Erin has her Swiss Army knife in a hip pocket—and they go weapons free as soon as they get inside the door.

The police chief, a tall man with a scruffy beard, hurries over. “Thank you for coming on such short notice. There’s another message.”

 

It’s hard to miss. The words are daubed in blood on the bedroom wall, directly above the victim’s bed. They stand out sharply against the tasteful white floral wallpaper.

_DEATH TO THE GHOSTBUSTERS_

“Well, that’s dramatic,” Holtzmann says, and covers a yawn.

Erin gives her a _be serious_ look. “You aren’t worried?”

“Nope,” Holtz says, popping the _p_. “He’s been saying that all along.” She flakes off a bit of blood with her fingernail and peers at it with interest.

“And now he’s directly threatening us,” Patty points out.

Holtz shrugs. “I’m working on something.”

Abby’s circling the room with the PKE meter held high, but it refuses to light up. The ghost—and its host—are long gone. “No paranormal activity.” This is directed to Peterson, who’s hovering in the doorway.

The police chief nods slowly. “I didn’t really expect you to find anything anyway. It was… a little while before the victim was discovered. We had someone in to date the blood.”

Erin feels like she’s going to be sick. There’s a faint stench of rot in the air, a cloying, foul smell. Holtz puts a steadying hand on her back, and Erin leans into the touch. She _hates_ blood.

“There’s nothing more we can do here,” Abby says. “Not regarding ghosts, anyway. Do you have any witnesses? Leads?”

“Almost nothing.” Peterson regards them. “I know you ladies can look out for yourselves, but… be careful, all right?” Holtz makes a soft scoffing noise. Erin elbows her. “We really can’t afford to lose you. Thanks for coming down.”

“Glad to help,” Abby says.

The ride back is silent. Holtz drives with none of her usual terrifying verve, and nobody’s talking. This case is wearing them down. Victim after victim, day after day… two nights ago, leaving the eighth crime scene, they passed the family of the young man who was killed. The family looked like wraiths, already drifting. There was a little girl, perhaps a sister, who twisted a thin silver chain around and around her wrist. Her eyes were red-rimmed and dazed, focusing on nothing.

Erin wonders every night how long they can keep going like this.

The next morning, Erin comes downstairs with her coffee mug already in hand. She heads to the kitchenette fridge to scrounge for leftovers and comes up with just enough bread and butter to make toast. Somehow she doesn’t even care.

Abby has her laptop open on her lap and is typing rapidly. Patty is flicking through a three-inch history book, with four more stacked up beside her. Erin, toast in hand, flips the whiteboard and settles in for another morning of wrangling physics equations.

After a few minutes, the newspaper thumps against the door. Abby gets up for it. “ _Investigation Entering Ninth Day; Doctor Death Still Loose_. And there’s a death toll, too. Twelve as of press time.” The paper falls from her limp grasp. “How could we let this happen?”

Patty looks up, marking her place with a finger. “What do you mean?”

“We’re supposed to be the Ghostbusters. We’re supposed to be the ones stopping people from getting murdered by possessed surgeons! We’re supposed to be good at this!”

“Hey, no.” Patty stands and makes her way over to Abby. “It’s not your fault. We’ll get this ghost.”

“Yeah? And how many more people are going to die before we do?”

None of them are willing to get into this fight. Silence hangs heavy in the firehouse.

Erin searches for a way to change the subject. Anything to escape the tension. “Where’s Holtz? I haven’t seen her since yesterday.”

“Lab, I think,” Abby says. “I’m pretty sure she stayed up all night. Not sure when she last ate, either. You could try to get her to take a nap or eat something?”

“That girl’s going to run herself into the ground,” Patty agrees.

Erin nods and heads up the stairs. As usual, Holtzmann’s desk is covered in spare parts. The engineer herself is bent over the disassembled proton blaster. She glances up at Erin’s approach.

“Hey, Gilbert.”

“You look awful,” Erin says without thinking, feeling her throat go tight. Holtz’s cheeks are pink, her lips cracked, and wide shadows hang under her eyes. She looks paler than usual, too, which is saying something. “Are you okay?”

Holtz waves her off. “Fine. I’ve almost got this to work…”

“No, seriously, Holtz. You look like death walking.” Erin puts the back of her hand on her friend’s forehead. “You’re kind of warm, too.”

Holtzmann leans away. “I am _fine_ ,” she says, and then sways slightly. She sits down hard in her desk chair.

Erin shakes her head. “You last slept _four_ _days_ ago.”

“We need to catch this ghost,” Holtz repeats. “I can sleep then.”

“Okay. You stay right here. I’m going to grab a thermometer.”

“But I’m almost done!” Holtz says as Erin retrieves the first aid kit from the other side of the office-slash-lab. Ever since the first time Holtz blew herself up, it’s been kept fully stocked and out of range of any explosions. “Plus,” she continues, “if I don’t get done soon I won’t be ready for the oyster apocalypse.”

“The oyster apocalypse?”

“Erin,” Holtzmann says, completely earnest. “Do you _know_ how many oysters there are in the world?”

“I don’t know. Maybe a lot. Where’s the thermometer?”

“There are _so many oysters_. I did the calculations. The ocean should be full of them now. Why aren’t we covered in oysters, Erin?”

“Okay. Found it.” Erin passes Holtz the thermometer. “Hold that under your tongue.”

Holtzmann gives it a disdainful look. “Fine. Grab me a glass of water?”

“Sure.” Erin jogs down the stairs and hurries over to Patty and Abby. “Guys, I think Holtz is coming down with something.”

“Seriously?” Abby grumbles.

“She looks really sick. Also, she’s rambling about oysters taking over the world. Maybe it’s the flu? I’m having her take her temperature right now, and I’m going to try to get her to take a nap.”

Patty stops her. “Are we worried she’s gonna need a doctor or something? Because… the only pattern we’ve been seeing is that the victims are sick enough to actually need medical attention, and most of them had the flu. And with what that guy wrote on the wall…”

A nervous silence falls. After a beat, Abby shakes her head. “Nope. We’re not doing this. We’ll be fine without Holtz for a little while. If she gets sick enough, one of us can stay with her.”

Erin nods. “Right. Good plan.” She fills a coffee mug from the sink in the kitchenette and goes back upstairs. Holtz is staring into space, the thermometer sticking out of the corner of her mouth. She startles when Erin puts a hand on her shoulder and spits out the thermometer.

Erin picks it up and sets down the mug. “103? Jesus Christ, Holtz, you really are sick.”

Holtzmann doesn’t say anything, just leans slowly forward and rests her head on her desk. The proton blaster makes a soft _whirr-eep_ and fizzes gently.

“Okay, let’s get you upstairs. You definitely should not be messing around with explosives.” Holtz doesn’t resist when Erin helps her up with an arm around her waist, except to grab the blaster. They stagger up to the third floor together, Holtz leaning heavily on Erin, and make it to her room just before she collapses altogether.

Erin pulls Holtz’s boots and jacket off and lifts the proton blaster out of her grasp. She tugs a blanket up around Holtz’s shoulders—to be honest, her bed is pretty much just a nest of blankets anyway. Almost shyly, Erin brushes a strand of hair out of the engineer’s eyes, fingers lingering on her cheek.

“What about the oysters?” Holtz asks softly.

“I’ll let you know if the oysters invade, okay? Until then, try to get some sleep. We’ll find you some ibuprofen or something later.”

Holtzmann nods and rolls over, curling up under the blanket. Erin shuts the door as quietly as possible and tries to walk slowly until she’s sure Holtz won’t be able to hear her running down the stairs.

“This isn’t normal for Holtz, is it?”

Abby looks up. “What is?”

“Getting sick? Obsessing over oysters? Crashing so hard she passes out at her desk?”

“The last one’s pretty normal. You weren’t around when she was prototyping the first PKE meter—” Abby says it without rancor, and Erin is secretly grateful—“but I don’t think she slept for a week. She told me it was done, I picked it up to have a look, and when I turned back she was asleep. Seriously, I don’t think she’s had a normal circadian rhythm for years. The oyster thing is kinda weird, though.” A troubled look crosses Abby’s face. “And I’ve never seen her get sick.”

The Ghostbusters share a long, unsettled look.

When the door creaks open, Erin yelps and Patty swears. Kevin strolls in obliviously. “Hi, guys!”

Erin is about to ask their secretary why he’s late when she notices the time. Kevin usually arrives at 9, as he just has. It’s the Ghostbusters who are up early; thinking back, Erin realizes she’s been awake before sunrise every morning this week without even setting an alarm. The stress is definitely getting to her.

 

When the phone call comes, around midday, they’ve already sent Kevin home. At this point, there are so few calls not related to Doctor Death that they have to answer them all anyway. Abby, Erin, and Patty stare nervously at the phone. Finally Abby gets up and answers it. “Ghostbusters HQ. Yeah, hi, Peterson. What’s going on? Fuck. Where’d you say? Staten Island? Okay. We’ll be right there.”

She hangs up and stares at the phone for a minute. Finally, she says, “Suit up, ladies.”

“Wait,” Patty says. “We going to just leave Holtz behind?”

“We can’t really spare anyone,” Abby points out. “What if we get a lead?”

“Then we’ll have a lead,” Erin says, “and you two can follow it.”

“You’re staying?”

“Why not?” Erin can feel herself shifting her stance. She’s ready to fight Abby on this.

“Go ahead, girl,” Patty says. “We’ll manage.”

Erin shoots her a smile and goes upstairs, picking up a proton pistol on the way. The second floor is empty, almost frighteningly so: with Holtz out of action the lab is empty. They’ve been congregating on the first floor lately, mostly so they can respond quickly, and definitely not because it feels more secure.

The third floor is equally quiet. Erin ducks into her room to grab a notebook and pencil, then opens Holtzmann’s door as slowly as possible, trying not to wake their resident mad scientist. At first she’s not even sure that Holtz is there, but as her eyes adjust to the low light, she picks out a figure curled under a pile of blankets. Erin clears a stack of sci-fi novels off the overstuffed armchair in the corner and sits down. She only gets through a few lines of math before she gets the feeling she’s being watched. Hand going to her pistol, she scans the room, moving only her eyes. After a few seconds, she spots a pair of blue eyes peering out from under the pile of blankets, and she has to smile. “Hey, Holtz.”

Holtz props herself up on one elbow, shaking off blankets. “Hey. What’s up?” Her voice is hoarse and ragged-edged.

“Abby and Patty are out on a bust. I said I’d stay.”

“You didn’t have to.”

“Maybe that was an idle threat yesterday, maybe not. I’d rather not find out.”

“Thanks,” Holtz says softly. She shrugs a blanket over her shoulders again and appears to go back to sleep. She doesn’t look much better, but at least she seems lucid.

After a few more minutes of bushwhacking through theoretical physics equations, Erin sets down her pencil and casts around for something to read. Holtz has quite the collection: Asimov and Wells share shelf space with Orwell and Butler. Madeline L’Engle’s Time Quintet is stacked on the windowsill.

Erin has to smile at that. She loved A Wrinkle in Time when she was a kid; she always imagined herself as Meg Murry. But when she picks the book up, she can’t concentrate. Street noise whispers through the wide-open window. Cars hurry back and forth. A pigeon squawks. Voices rise and fall.

She’s half-dozing when a sharp, rising whine breaks through her daze. Holtz almost falls off the bed as she snatches a miniature PKE meter from a drawer in her bedside table. It’s going full steam,  glowing and whistling and spinning like mad. Erin jumps to her feet, drawing the proton pistol.

“Erin,” Holtz says urgently, “get under the bed. Don’t come out until I tell you.” At first her voice is clear, but it quickly roughens. She coughs into the crook of her arm.

“What?!”

“Trust me! _Please!_ We don’t have much time!”

There’s something desperate in Holtzmann’s voice, and Erin does as she’s told. She rolls awkwardly under the bed and wriggles around until she can see the door.

Five breaths later, it creaks open. A pair of feet in leather shoes appear.

“Doctor Death, I presume?” Holtz says. Her voice is hoarse but defiant.

“Dr. Holtzmann,” the ghost says, though the mouth of its possessed host. It sounds middle-aged, and there’s a strange tilt to its voice that gives Erin chills. This is no common apparition. “I warned you, did I not?” the ghost continues.

“Yeah, yeah. ‘Death to the Ghostbusters’ and all that.” Holtz sounds lazy, almost (but not quite) blasé about the whole situation. The way her voice cracks every few syllables ruins that.

“You would not heed my warning. Well, this will be a warning to your friends. The ‘Ghostbusters’. How… cute.”

“You won’t escape,” Holtz warns, and coughs again. “You murdered _twelve people_.” Erin silently flips the safety off her pistol. If she can just get a clean shot—but the ghost is still possessing a mortal host, and getting shot with a proton beam won’t do anything good to a human.

“Fifteen, actually.”

“What?”

“There are still three you haven’t found. The south end of Soho, 71st and Madison, and Times Square,” the ghost says, sounding horrifyingly proud of himself. “And I think, my dear, you’ll find that I _will_ ‘get away with this’, as the phrase goes.”

“You _bastard_ ,” Holtz bites out.

The ghost chuckles. “I respect your determination, Dr. Holtzmann, and I would grant a last request. A courtesy between enemies.”

“I’m so cold. The window—could you just…”

“Of course, my dear.” Leather shoes cross the room. The window slams shut.

“And can you grab me a can of Pringles?” Suddenly Holtz sounds like her nonchalant, sarcastic old self. Erin muffles a gasp of surprise.

“I’m sorry, what?”

“Well, I haven’t eaten for four days.” There’s a sudden rustle, and Erin hears the unmistakable sound of a proton blaster cocking. “All the better to deceive you. Now, Doctor Death, you can depossess that man, or we can do this the hard way.”

“You can’t shoot this body without destroying it,” the ghost sneers.

“Ah,” Holtz says, “but this is not just any proton blaster.” Her voice turns maliciously gleeful. “ _This_ proton blaster is single-shot. Takes hours to charge. But it only harms ghosts. I could shoot up the whole city without leaving a mark. _Except on you_. So I’m going to give you one last chance. If you don’t leave right now, I will use this blaster. And it is going to hurt. It might even tear your psyche to tiny little pieces. If you _do_ leave… well, Erin will probably shoot you. Did I forget to mention that? Yeah, she’s here too. But she has a nicer gun. Won’t even leave a mark. Your choice.”

Doctor Death chuckles sharply. “You’re bluffing.” He takes two quick steps toward her.

Holtz fires.

 

Holtzmann refuses to explain anything until she’s eaten, so once the possessed surgeon has been whisked away in an ambulance for observation and the police have cleared out (apparently the window closing was the signal for a full squad to storm the firehouse), she and Erin walk down to the new waffle bar a few blocks away. Holtz devours her entire waffle in about five minutes flat, then eyes Erin’s so despondently that Erin hands over half of hers. Finally she sits back in the booth and sighs contentedly. “Okay. I’m good. What do you want to know?”

“What—no. How… uh, why. Just _why_.”

Holtz shrugs. “Because all of you are terrible liars and I had a cool gun.”

Erin gives her the hairy eyeball.

“Fine. This ghost was too smart. Frankly, we were never going to catch him in a fair fight. So I made it unfair. Setting him up was way too easy. He’s a paranoid little sneaker, so I guessed he’d have someone watching our place. I asked Peterson to call in a bust far enough away that you wouldn’t be back for a while and let the ghost see you leave without me. He was smart enough to figure out that I had probably come down with the flu, since most of his victims were infected and there was no other explanation for why I’d leave you shorthanded. He was _not_ smart enough to figure out that I was faking.”

Erin could listen to Holtz talk so enthusiastically, so gleefully, for hours, but she does need to clear some things up. “Yeah, about that. You didn’t sleep or eat for four days?”

“Yup. Spent the time finishing the gun.”

"Okay, you really need to take better care of yourself. We  _are_ going to discuss that later. Presumably you were faking the oyster stuff and passing out?”

“Yup.”

“When I left the room, you must’ve held the thermometer to a lightbulb to make it look like you had a fever.”

“Yup.”

“And you were wearing makeup? That’s why you looked so terrible?”

“Yup.” Holtz is grinning by this point. “I wanted it to be convincing. Apparently none of you ever skipped school.”

“This is kind of extreme for skipping school, Holtz…”

“Hey, whenever I pulled it, I got a full week off.”

Erin has to laugh. “Jesus. And you didn’t see fit to tell us… why?”

“None of you can lie well enough, and you wouldn’t have let me do it.”

“You’re right, we wouldn’t have. That was incredibly reckless. You could have gotten killed!” The old panic rises up in Erin’s gut.

“But I didn’t,” Holtz says with a smirk. She leans back in her seat, arms crossed. “He got Holtzmanned _._ ”

“You never think, do you? You never think about how we’d—how I’d feel if something happened to you.” Erin’s voice breaks a little as she says it.

Holtz reaches across the table to twine Erin’s fingers with hers. She has an engineer’s rough skin, but her grip is gentle. They sit in silence for a moment.

“I built that gun for you,” Holtz says, without preamble.

“What?”

“For you. Because of you. How do you think I’d feel if something happened to _you_?”

“I—thanks, Holtz.”

“My pleasure,” Holtz says softly, with none of her usual sarcasm.

Something occurs to Erin. A blast of light, the ghost’s scream, a _crack_ and sizzle of sparks…“The gun?”

Holtz understands. “Busted. It really was a one-shot thing. I’m not sure I can fix it, let alone build another like it.”

“You know, Abby and Patty are going to be upset. Not about the gun—although I’ll bet Abby will be mad you didn’t let her try it out—about the fact that you lied to them, deliberately put yourself in danger, and made them drive all the way to Staten Island.”

Holtzmann’s expression turns from—tender?—to stricken. “Shit.”

Erin passes her phone over. “You’d better call them.”

Somehow Holtz arranges to be fast asleep on Erin’s shoulder when Abby and Patty get back. Despite having told Holtz that she won’t be a human shield in the force of their friends’ incandescent rage, Erin can’t bring herself to wake her up.

They clean out the leftovers in the fridge—nothing’s fresh, because nobody wanted to cook—and order pizza for dinner. The delivery boy tells them it’s on the house, and they tip him twenty bucks instead. Holtz wakes up right away when she smells pineapple-and-ham wafting from the kitchenette, and they have movie night: everyone gets to pick one. Holtz falls asleep again after her choice ( _The Martian_ , always a favorite of hers), this time curled against Erin’s side.

When she notices, Erin hides a fond smile and brushes a kiss against the engineer’s forehead.

One blue eye flutters open. Holtz smiles.

Tomorrow, the headlines will be triumphant. There will be interviews to give, most likely, and phone calls that aren’t reporting a new victim. But for now, at last, the fire house is quiet. Stars speckle the night sky as the city lights up: vibrant against the darkness, and finally safe.


End file.
